Development and trends in HVOF spraying technology

Three actual trends in development of HVOF spraying technology are described and discussed. The trends concern application fields as well as gun and feedstock characteristics. At the example of demountable draw bars it is shown that HVOF sprayed cermet coatings are capable to protect light weight material components subject to dynamical load against wear without detraction of fatigue strength. Personnel and production time savings can be exploited. High deposition efficiency at considerable powder feed rate, high density and negligible oxygen content in corrosion protective iron or nickel based coatings is achieved for spraying with newly developed HVOF guns operating at increased combustion chamber pressures. Also spraying of highly reactive materials like titanium under atmospheric conditions becomes feasible. A major obstacle for industrial use of respective coatings is the lack of adapted characterisation methods that permit to ascertain corrosion protective function. Ultrafine powder feedstock is used in order to reduce overall costs of wear protective cermet coatings due to the possibility to finish coatings by comparatively cheap belt grinding. However, it is shown that the replacement of coatings produced with conventional powder size fractions requires careful consideration of the particular tribological system. While cermet coatings produced with ultrafine powders outperform conventional coatings for sliding wear conditions, their capability to withstand dry abrasive wear stress is poor. The benefits concerning coating production costs may be outweighed by significantly decreased component life time.